NEW YORK: The stock market roared back to record highs on Thursday, driven by better news on the economy.
The Standard & Poor’s 500, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Russell 2000 index set all-time highs. The S&P broke through 1,700 points for the first time. The Nasdaq hit its highest level since September 2000.
The gains were driven by a steady flow of encouraging, if incremental, reports on the global economy.
Overnight, a positive read on China’s manufacturing helped shore up Asian markets. Then, an hour before U.S. trading started, the government reported that unemployment claims fell last week. At mid-morning a trade group said U.S. factories revved up production last month. And while corporate earnings news brought both winners and losers, investors were able to find enough that they liked in companies including CBS, MetLife and Yelp.
“It’s just a lot of things adding up,” said Russell Croft, portfolio manager of the Croft Value Fund in Baltimore. “It’s hard to put your finger on why exactly, but basically it’s a bunch of pretty good data points coming together to make a very good day.”
Overall, analysts said, the news was good but not overwhelmingly so. Enough to suggest that the economy is improving, but not enough to prompt the Federal Reserve to withdraw its economic stimulus programs.
Earnings results covered a wide range. Boston Beer, which makes Samuel Adams, and home shopping network operator HSN rose after beating analysts’ estimates for earnings and revenue. Kellogg, health insurer Cigna and cosmetics maker Avon were down after beating earnings predictions but missing on revenue.
It’s becoming a familiar template this year. Stock indexes have been setting record highs even while the underlying economy is more often described as decent, but hardly going gangbusters.
Take company earnings, the most important thing for stock investors. Earnings at S&P 500 companies are up 4.3 percent this quarter, and revenue is down 0.4 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ. In previous eras, that hardly would have been considered encouraging. In the second quarter of 2007, before the financial crisis imploded, earnings rose 8.7 percent and revenue was up 5.8 percent. But compared with the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, when earnings plunged more than 20 percent each time, this year’s results look positively cheery.
The S&P 500 index rose 21.14 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,706.87. The Dow rose 128.48 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,628.02. The Russell 2000 of small-company stocks rose 14.62 points, or 1.4 percent, to 1,059.88.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 49.37 points, or 1.4 percent, to 3,675.74, in line with the daily gains of other indexes but not near its record. The Nasdaq, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, briefly veered above 5,000 points in March 2000, just before the Internet bubble burst.
Investors said Thursday that the S&P’s crossing over 1,700 points might give consumers a psychological boost, but they were hardly crowing about a new era in stocks.